City Council - Regular Meeting

Mayor?

It is. Temperature dropped down all rainy and nasty.

Mayor Mouton?

Uh-huh. Let me call to order the one thousand eight hundred and ninety eighth meeting with your city council. We're gonna open up by indication by councilman Georgette Ford if she's still in the building. Georgette. Georgette. Georgette.

She's right out there.

And the pledge of allegiance by councilman Ron Martin. If she doesn't show up to pray,

I guess you don't have

to pray, Ron. Georgia.

Father God, thank you so much. Thank you for this special day that we can see all the shining lights of Deer Park come out for everything that we've done for the future and for the quality of life here. It was a beautiful event, and we are so thankful. And we know that we owe all the blessings to you, father. We thank you so much for that. We ask that you be with each of us so we make decisions, that you protect all of our staff and all of our citizens that are here tonight, that they go home safely. And we ask that you just continue to bless the great city of Deer Park with everything that you're doing for us and all the quality of life. It's in your holy name that we pray. Amen. Amen.

Please join me for the pledges of the American and Texas flags.

Did anyone sign up to speak?

Yes, sir. Cheryl Crawford.

Okay. My name's Sheryl Crawford. I live at 906 North Kaufman in Deer Park, and I'm here again for the same subject, the house that's proposed to be a halfway house or called a group home at 822 North Kaufman Drive. And according to the Texas Pardons and Paroles, they have adopted the distance of 500 feet for a daycare. I am one house away from this proposed group home.

And I have a Texas registered home daycare. I have had it since 2002. I'm not getting rid of it. I'm not moving even though there are U boxes in my driveway. I'm having work done on my ceiling in the garage. Had to empty the garage. A lot of work. Okay. My neighbors and I met with the founder and owner of the Houston Missional Real Estate Fund. His name's Doug Grant, and Kathy Vorberg representing Crosswork Center on April 12.

These are the two people that are involved in this house, proposed house. I think they were very surprised at the number of people that were at this meeting. I counted 31. And, I mean, we weren't overly friendly, but we were not angry with them. We voiced our displeasure.

And I was very disappointed in the realtor who is the one who bought the house, found the house to buy. But he may have said 20 words the whole time. He just stood there. And he let her talk. And she basically said the same thing over and over and over and over again about six different times about the organization and who they would serve and how they would serve and all of this.

And she really didn't give us any major information other than that. And Mr. Grant, I explicitly asked him to speak. And he just stood there. He didn't speak.

Now, if the man is not going to speak to us, the neighbors that are going to be involved in this neighborhood, I don't trust him. And they have not been upfront about what they're doing. And that just doesn't sit right. Now, they had a worker over there doing pressure washing and trimming a tree. And for the first time since they started working on that house, there was trash out. There ain't been trash out at all.

You want to ask that up?

No, sir.

Moving on to presentations, agenda item number one. We got presentation in recognition of National Volunteer Appreciation Week.

Mayor, counsel, it's my privilege tonight to be here on behalf of our volunteers. As you know, I've made a report for them every year. And I think this group just gets better and better and better every year. So we recognize them for National Volunteer Appreciation Week, April 19 through the twenty fifth. I'll give you a little bit of background on what they've done the last year.

They've doubled their hours over the preceding year with three thousand seven hundred and sixty six hours of volunteer work, which is about two and a quarter of real time FTEs. That's huge. That's a large donation of time that they have that they have given. In addition to that, I mean, as you know, they're involved in the police memorial. They do inspections of our vehicles or pretty much anything in the building that they're involved in.

They have been involved now with Back to Blue, which has allowed them to raise a lot of money with the report as Police Academy alumni. Prior to that, I mean, this month, just a few weeks ago, they were in Corpus Christi. Sheila and seven of them came to Corpus pretty much on their own. And had they not been there, our golf tournament would have been a total disaster. We had two volunteers from Corpus Sunday night and one from North Northlake?

And on on Monday, when the golf tournament happened, we had the volunteer from Northlake and our our eight folks. Otherwise, it would have been chief Ken Atcox not doing it all. It would have been horrible. They set put all the signs up. They did put the raffle, put it all out together.

They registered every golfer. They witnessed holes that were there. I mean, the president of our association got up and just went on and on and on about the Deer Park volunteers in the opening speech. So that was really I didn't expect that, but they were really I got comments all week long from attendees about how great our volunteers are. Sheila stayed and helped us sell raffle tickets for an item that Lynn Baker had put together.

And about $4,000 or so that was raised on that, that our alumni association had donated for that purpose. And so I just found out that they have signed a co sponsorship with, I guess it's a trial sponsorship with Pearland Police Academy alumni, Galveston County Alumni Association to host the Texas Citizens Police Academy alumni annual convention in Galveston next year. So they're going to be heavily involved in that. They're also going to the golf tournament with the Texas Police Chiefs Association with us again next year in Round Rock. So they're just knocking it out of the park.

Inside the building, outside the department, I couldn't be prouder of a group than I am of these folks that donate and give so much to themselves and of their time. They just got through buying you probably saw it the driver's license scanners for police cars that are going in. It's every time we turn around, they're doing something for us. And I appreciate them much. And I'll turn it over to you, Mayor. I also wanna say they help with Bubba Bingo.

That is pretty much it. Yes. They do.

And they just entered a team in the wheelhouse golf tournament. So, thank you.

I'm pretty sure it's not official until

you get up here and take a picture with everybody.

Because unless it ends up on social media, it doesn't really count. Absolutely.

Look at me. He's like, I'm getting in the back.

I think we know that tomorrow is a certain person's birthday in the middle of your group.

Who whose birthday is it?

She's great. How about happy birthday? Who? Happy birthday.

I think that means he's gonna get you back one day.

James, baby. Coming up.

Miss Rebecca? Y'all got recognized for some kind of award. I may have already given it away, but

know what, doctor.

Tell us what the award is all about.

Okay. So every year or for the last fourteen years, we have been applying for the Texas Municipal Library Directors Association Excellence of Achievement in Library Services. And we've been lucky enough to get it every year. So we're I'm very proud of my staff. They work hard to put together the award and they work hard to throughout the year in order to accomplish the these things.

You get it every year?

We have. Every year we've applied. Yes.

I don't think the luck has anything to do with it. Just saying. So that was non lucky thing.

Yes. Thank you.

Then we got some kind of proclamation.

Yes. It's also National Library Week that from it coincides with Volunteer Appreciation Week, in fact. It's April 19 through the twenty fifth and it basically celebrates all the things that libraries do to give back to the community and, you know, all of the hard work that the library staff does throughout the year.

What is one thing that the library does for the community?

I mean No. I'll go with, I'll go with, we provide educational opportunities for all ages. For the children, we do story time and they learn to sit still and pay attention. And hopefully, if we do our job right, they learn to love books. And then we do same thing. We do programs for the teens. And then we do a feature Friday, which is a monthly lecture series designed for kind of like a continuing education for the adults.

See, I didn't have her to say anything. She's there with the mic. She she's, like, know what she's doing.

I would hope so after all this time.

Now, therefore, I, jury, Mouton, mayor of the city of Deer Park, do hereby proclaim April 19 through the 2026 as National Library. We thank you for

your participation. You. You.

I just love it when you

can give the mic to somebody and they just do all the talking. Are you gonna talk? No. Moving on to consent calendar. Move for approval. Second. I have a motion and a second by councilman Ginn and councilman Haight. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion carries. New business. Consideration of an action on ordinance to amend the fiscal year twenty five-twenty six water and sewer fund budget for the advanced metering infrastructure project. Mr.

Fox.

An ordinance amending the twenty twenty five-twenty twenty six budget for the Seated Deer Park, Texas and appropriating the sums that are at their end and objects and purposes therein.

Move for approval. Second.

Move for approval.

Sorry. A motion by Councilman Martin. Second by

Councilwoman Ford. Councilman

Ford. Any discussion? No discussion? Is that your last opportunity to make a motion? No. That's awesome.

He already had to ask All

in favor?

Aye.

All opposed? Motion carries. That's all the items we have for tonight. This meeting is adjourned.